Dual purpose articles of clothing



Nov. 15,1960 M. J. MILLS ETAL, 2,959,789

DUAL PURPOSE ARTICLES OF CLOTHING Filed March 4, 1957 M in INVENTORS. 44/6/7645! J. 44/115 #05514 7 A. p409) WMW 14770FA/f) United States Patent 2,959,789 DUAL PURPOSE ARTICLES OF CLOTHING Michael J. Mills, Los Angeles, and Robert L. Parry, La

Crescenta, Calif., assignors to William L. Parry, Pasadena, Calif.

Filed Mar. 4, 1957, Ser. No. 643,712 6 Claims. (Cl. 2-93) This invention relates to a dual purpose article of clothing and more particularly to an article of clothing comprising a jacket which is adapted to be converted to a carrying sack or duffle bag.

In many out-of-doors activities it is desirable to have available an article of clothing such as a jacket which may be worn to provide protection from the weather. Normally, such an article of clothing is bothersome to carry and has no utility when not being worn. Yet the article of clothing must be carried or worn to be available for use along with any other articles which are required for the activity contemplated.

Accordingly, we have devised an article of clothing in the form of a jacket which is readily convertible to a carrying sack or duffle bag which may be used to store and carry other items whenever desired. Thus, the article of clothing has a utility apart from being used as Wearing apparel, and other items may be stored and carried with ease without the necessity for a separate container in which to place the items.

The article of clothing of the invention is particularly useful in sports activities. For example, swimming equipment, towels or food may be carried to the beach in the article of the invention with a jacket being readily available upon arrival. Other uses, such as in golfing, skiing, etc. readily come to mind. Apart from sports activities, the space saving and dual purpose aspects of the invention may well make such an article of value to'the armed services. l i

In accordance with the present invention, an article is provided which includes material formed as an open front jacket having sleeves which may be withdrawn into the jacket. A fastener is attached to the material for closing the front opening to provide a sack when the jacket is inverted, and a draw string is attached to the material for pulling the material together so that the sack becomes a dufile bag when the sleeves are withdrawn and the front opening is closed. I

A better understanding of the invention may be had from a reading of the following detailed description and an inspection of the drawing in which:

Fig. 1 is a front view of an article of clothing constructed in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a partial front view of the article of Fig. 1 with the fastener partially closed and the collar folded inwardly preparatory to converting the article to a dufile s;

Fig. 3 is a partial front view of the article" of Fig. 1 showing the fastener completely closed;

Fig. 4 is a rear view of the article of clothing of Fig. 1 with the collar in position for use of the article as a jacket; and V V ,Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the article of Fig. l in inverted closed position for use as a duffle bag. 9

In the drawing there is shown an article of clothing which includes a right front panel 1 (Fig. 1), a left front panel 2, a left rear panel 3 (Fig. 4), and aright rear panel 4. (In the description contained herein, right refers to a direction on the right of a person wearing'the article, and left refers to a direction on the left of a person wearing the article.) Each of the panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 may be cut in the configuration shown. {The-right shoulder and upper right sleeve portions of the article are formed by means of a conventional fiat felled seam 5 joining the upper edges of the right front panel 1 and the right rear panel 4. The left shoulder and upper left sleeve portions of the article are formed by means of another conventional flat felled seam 6 which joins the upper edges of the left front panel 2 and the left rear panel 3. The right rear panel 4 and the left rear panel 3 (Fig. 4) are joined in a conventional flat felled seam 7 running along the length of the article to form a back section. The left underarm and left body portions of the article are formed by joining the left front panel 2 and the left rear panel 3 by means of a plain seam 8, the details of which may be seen in the small broken away portion of Fig. 1. In like fashion, the right front 7 panel 1 and the right rear panel 4 are joined by means of a plain seam 9 in the right underarm and right body portions.

With the four panels joined in the manner described above, an open front jacket is provided with a neck opening being formed by the upper edges of the rear panels 3 and 4 and the upper inner edges of the front panels 1 and 2. e

The right sleeve portion terminates in an opening 10 formed between the seams 5 and 9 and the left sleeve portion terminates in an opening 11 formed between the scams 6 and 8. Although the sleeves of the article may be constructed separately from the body panels in a par? ticular embodiment if desired, the construction shown is known as a Dolman type sleeve in which the sleeve is formed by an extension of the material of the front and rear panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 and is considered preferablebecause of its simplicity of construction and capability of being easily withdrawn into the body portion when'the article is to be used as a duffle bag as described below.

A slide fastener is attached at the front opening of the article with one track 12 of the fastener being attachedto the right hand panel 1 and the other track 13 of the fastener being attached to the left 'front'panel 2. The tracks -12 and 13 are adapted to be joined ina conventional fashion by a slider 14 which initially joins the lower ends of the tracks 12 and 13 and which when drawn upwardly fastens the tracks 12 and 13 together. f-

When the article is being used as a jacket, the slide fastener may be raised to a point where the sections 12 and 13 are joined to provide a V-shaped neck opening (Fig.2).

A roll collar 15 is attached to the inner side of the panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 adjacent the neck opening and extends outwardly to fold over the inner edges of the panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 to protect the neck of the wearer from chafing against the slide fastener tracks 12 and 13. In order to strengthen the jacket along the inner edges of the panels 1, 2, 3 and 4, a strip of material forming an interfacing 16 is attached on the inner side adjacent the front opening and neck opening of the jacket. In Fig. 1 the right front panel 1 has been folded back to show the interfacing'16. A pocket 17 is sewn on the left front panel 2 for convenient use when the article is being used as a jacket. In one version of the jacket the pocket 17, the collar 15 and the interfacing 16 were made of highly colored striped material and solid colored material was used for the front and rear panels 1, 2, 3 and 4. I

Fig. 2 shows a portion of the article with the roll collar 15 folded into the jacket and the slide fastener tracks 12 and 13 joined to the level normally used when the article is-employed as a jacket. As may be seen in Fig. 2, the slide fastener tracks 12 and 13 extend along the entire length of the inner edge of the front panels 1 and 2 and extend around the neck opening in attachment with the upper edges of the rear panels 3 and 4 to a. point adjacent the back seam 7 of the article.

In using the article as a sack or dufile bag the sleeves and arm openings 10 and 11 may be withdrawn into the body of the article to a position indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 4. When the jacket is tobe converted to a sack or dufile bag the roll collar 15- is folded" inwardly as shown in Fig. 2 and the slide fastener tracks 12 and 1-3 are joined by raising the slider 14 to the ends of the tracks 12 and 13 adjacent the back seam 7 (Fig. 3) which in turn joins the panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 together as shown.

With the slide fastener raised to close the neck opening and the sleeves withdrawn into the body portion, the article may be inverted to form a sack which is useful for carrying other items.

Along the bottom of the jacket (Figs. 1 and 4), a casing 18 is provided by folding over and sewing the bottom edge of each of the panel 1, 2, 3 and 4 to form a continuous tuber Extending throughout the length and past the ends of the casing 18 is a draw string 19. By pulling the string 19 the panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 are drawn together. When the panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 are drawn closely together, the article takes on the configuration of a duflle bag. Fig. shows the article in inverted position for use as a dufile bag.

When the article is being used as a dufile bag and the sleeves are withdrawn into the body portion of the article, it has been found that the sleeves are effectively sealed and closed so that there is substantially no risk of articles falling from the sleeve openings and 11.

After the dufiie bag is fully closed it may be carried in any position and a handle 20 formed by a strip of material may be sewn to the rear of the panels 3 and 4 as shown in Fig. 4. The handle 20 may be made to match the collar 15, facing 16 and pocket 17 to give an attractive appearance.

Although the invention has been illustrated in what we believe to be the preferred embodiment in which an article of clothing in the form of a jacket is adapted to be converted to a convenient carrying sack or dufile bag, the invention is intended to extend to all changes, modifications or equivalents thereof.

What is claimed is:

1. An article of clothing, including the combination of a plurality of pieces of material joined to form a jacket having a neck receiving opening and sleeves, and continuous cooperating fastening elements attached to the pieces of material and extending substantially around said neck receiving opening, whereby in an inverted position said sleeves may be withdrawn into said jacket and said fastening elements completely close the neck receiving opening to convert the jacket into a sack.

2. An article of clothing, including the combination of a plurality of pieces of material joined to form a body covering article having an open front, and having sleeves and a neck receiving opening, continuous cooperating fastening elements attached to the pieces of material and extending from around the neck receiving opening to adjacent the bottom of the article for closing the open front and the neck receiving opening of the article, and a fastening device arranged about the bottom of the article to fasten the pieces of material whereby in an inverted position the article may be employed as a sack.

3. An article of clothing, including the combination of a right front panel having a lower inner edge, an upper inner edge adapted to form a portion of a neck opening, a right shoulder edge which continues outwardly to form a sleeve configuration, a lower right outside edge forming the lower portion of a sleeve configuration and extending downwardly therefrom generally parallel with the substantially straight lower inner edge; a left front panel having a lower inner edge, an upper inner edge adapted to form a portion of a neck opening, a left shoulder edge which continues outwardly to form a sleeve configuration, a lower left outside edge forming the lower portion of a sleeve configuration and downwardly therefrom generally parallel with the substantially straight lower inner edge; a back section having a configuration complementary to the right and left panels and fastened thereto to form a jacket having Dolman type sleeves; a slide fastener having separate tracks attached to the lower inner edge and upper inner edge of the right and left panels by means of which the front of the jacket may. be closed; said slide fastener tracks continuing completely around the neck opening whereby the right front panel, the left front panel and the back section may be fastened together to form an enclosure;,a casing formed along the bottom edges of the right panel, the back section and the left front panel; and a draw string extending throughout the. length of the casing. whereby upon drawing the sleeves into the jacket and closing the slide fastener, the jacket is converted to a dufile bag which may be closed by tightening the draw string to pull the bottom edges of the right front panel, the rear section and the left front panel together.

4. An article of clothing in accordance with claim 3 in which a foldable roll type collar is attached to the right front panel, the rear section and the left front panel, said collar being adapted tocover at least a part of the slide fastener tracks for protecting the neck of a wearer from the slide fastener tracks when the article of clothing is employed as a jacket, said collar also being adapted to be folded into. the jacket for closure of the slide fastener when the article is employed as a dufile bag.

5. An article of clothing, including the combination of a rear section, a right front panel, and a left front panel, said panels being joined to said rear section to form an open front jacket having a neck receiving opening and sleeves, means including a slide fastener having separate tracks attached to the right front panel and the left front panel and secured to the rear section, said slide fastener extending around said neck receiving opening so that the right front panel, the left front panel and the rear section may be fastened together to form an enclosure with the neck receiving opening being closed, and a draw-string held within a portion of the right front panel, the rear section and the left front panel for pulling the rear section, the right front panel and the left front panel together to form a dufile bag type enclosure when said sleeves are withdrawn into the jacket and the slide fastener is in position to fasten together the right front panel, the left front panel and the rear section to close the neck receiving opening.

6. An article of clothing in accordance with claim 5 in which a foldable roll type collar is attached to the right front panel, the rear section and the left front panel, said collar being adapted to cover at least a part of the slide fastener tracks for protecting the neck of a wearer from the slide fastener tracks when the article of clothing is employed as a jacket, said collar also being adapted to be folded into the jacket for closure of the slide fastener when the article is to be employed as a duffie bag.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 586,132 Lane July 13, 1897 1,169,256 Grimm et al Jan. 25, 1916 1,523,908 Shafter Jan. 20, 1925 2,058,474 Long Oct. 27, 1936 2,113,911 Bjornson Apr. 12, 1938 2,143,931 Aronson Jan. 17, 1939 2,292,347 Bailey Aug. 11, 1942 2,325,888 Spencer Aug. 3, 1943 2,380,909 Jackson July 31, 1945 2,441,122 Sturz May 4, 1948 2,466,208 Chanslor et al Apr. 5, 1949 2,534,473 Peek Dec. 19, 1950 2,622,248 Schaye Dec. 23, 1952 FOREIGN PATENTS 51,538 Switzerland Mar. 17, 1910 

